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Topic: Autolyse ingredients order (Read 2160 times)

Okay, not sure which forum this should go into. Also, I'm sure this has been covered before, but I did a search for autolyse and, quite frankly, got so many hits that included the word but were not directly on point that I thought I'd post anew.

So my question is, when using a short autolyse, do I add the salt and the yeast beforehand, or do I hold those back until after the rest period?

Here's the back story. I use Tom's NY pizza recipe. I just got a Bosch Universal plus mixer and was having trouble getting the same glossy look and feel that I used to get with a KA. When I posted about it on the equipment forum, a poster suggested I mix all my ingredients (All Trumps flour, IDY, salt, water) and then let them sit for a 5-minute autolyse period before running the Bosch (on low) for another 6 minutes or so. But I know that in another recipe I read somewhere, it was highly recommended that you not include the salt during an autolyse period. And in yet another recipe I read in Cook's Illustrated, they held back both the salt and the yeast for the autolyse period. I'm a bit worried, however, that if I hold back the salt and/or yeast from the initial mix, they won't get properly distributed throughout the dough during the 6-minute machine knead.

One option that occurred to me would be to hold back the salt and/or yeast along with a couple of ounces of cold water, and dissolve them in the water before adding to the dough post-rest period. Thoughts?

You see the word autolyse used in many different ways. I think the most common use you see around here refers to a process of gluten development. However there is a little more to it. Professor Cavel wanted to make stronger and more extensible dough without excessive mixing which can bleach out flavor, aroma, and color due to incorporating too much oxygen. He named the process called "Autolyse" because of the "self destruction" connotation.

During the rest, the flour is hydrated and the components of gluten are developed building strength in the dough. At the same time, protease enzymes in the flour become activated by the water and begin to break down parts of the gluten (hence the autolyse reference) relaxing the dough. The net result is that you can get strong and extensible dough with much less mixing and the resulting oxidation when employing a rest. Salt, and to a lesser extent yeast, can affect the enzyme activity which is why they are traditionally added after the autolyse period. Likewise, the yeast is going to start doing its thing immediately, and you might not want the fermentation clock to start until after the autolyse period.

There are no rules, however a typical autolyse may be 20 minutes to overnight. For what basically amounts to simply a 5 minute rest, I don't think it will make any difference if you add the salt and yeast before or after.

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"We make great pizza, with sourdough when we can, commercial yeast when we must, but always great pizza."Craig's Neapolitan Garage

Actually I re-read the advice I had been given and it recommends a 10-20 minute resting period pre-knead, not a five minute rest. Does that change anything? If I add the yeast and salt post-rest, will they get well distributed during a 6-minute knead in a Bosch mixer? Would I need to dissolve them in water to ensure adequate distribution?

Actually I re-read the advice I had been given and it recommends a 10-20 minute resting period pre-knead, not a five minute rest. Does that change anything? If I add the yeast and salt post-rest, will they get well distributed during a 6-minute knead in a Bosch mixer? Would I need to dissolve them in water to ensure adequate distribution?

Your objective of smooth dough is not the same as the objective of a classic autolyse. You could achieve the same thing by a 10 minute rest after mixing and then a few stretch-and-folds, so I tend to doubt you would see a meaningful difference adding the salt and yeast before or after.

The one exception may be if you are making an "emergency" style dough with a lot of yeast and a very short fermentation period maybe you wouldn't want to add the yeast until after in that case.

If it was me, I'd add the yeast up front. In any case, I think you are fine to add the salt up front. If you decide to add the yeast after, you probably don't need to dissolve IDY (I'd be curious to hear other people's thoughts on this), but you would certainly want to dissolve ADY or CY.

Also, there is nothing that says you have to autolyse 100% of your flour, you could hold back 20% and add it with the yeast to make it easier to incorporate. If I was going to add the yeast (and/or salt) after, this is how I would do it.

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"We make great pizza, with sourdough when we can, commercial yeast when we must, but always great pizza."Craig's Neapolitan Garage

In the strictest and most basic sense, the classic autolyse as Prof. Calvel described it entails combining only the flour and water. In his book, The Taste of Bread, at page 31, this is what is said about autolysis:

Autolysis is the slow-speed premixing of the flour and water in a recipe (excluding all the other ingredients), followed by a rest period. The other ingredients are added when mixing is recommenced [...]. During experiments in 1974, Professor Calvel discovered that the rest period improves the links between starch, gluten, and water, and notably improves the extensibility of the dough. As a result, when mixing is restarted, the dough forms a mass and reaches a smooth state more quickly. Autolysis reduces the total mixing time (and therefore the dough's oxidation) by approximately 15%, facilitates the molding of unbaked loaves, and produces bread with more volume, better cell structure, and a more supple crumb. Although the use of autolysis is advantageous in the production of most types of bread, including regular French bread, white pan sandwich bread and sweet bread doughs, it is especially valuable in the production of natural levain leavened breads.

In practice, the amount of flour used for the autolyse rest period can be all or a good part of the formula flour. But the salt and yeast are added later. Craig has already touched upon some of the reasons for their omission but I can provide you with further discussion on this should you wish. But, with few exceptions, which I will touch on below, the classic Calvel autolysis does not include salt or yeast in the dough.

In terms of the duration of the autolyse rest period, I have read from about ten minutes (usually in a home setting) to several hours, even including overnight. This seems to be one of those cases where some people conclude, erroneously, that if a little is good, more, even much more, must be better. As you can see from Reply 15 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,3220.msg74624.html#msg74624, the autolyse rest periods used by Prof. Calvel himself were quite short, and that was for dough batches in excess of 75 pounds. Also, as noted in Reply 489 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,576.msg30141.html#msg30141, Evelyne Slomon suggested a five-minute autolyse rest period in a home setting. And her post was in the epic Lehmann NY style thread.

The duration of the autolyse rest period is important because that is where the abovementioned exceptions come into play. Although Prof. Calvel said not to add the salt and yeast to the dough before autolysis, from what I read he came to accept the addition of yeast into the dough during autolysis if it would not start to acidfiy the dough during the rest period used. That applied both to commercial yeast and sourdough cultures. So, in your case, if you intend to use a brief autolyse rest period, you should be able to add the yeast before autolysing the dough. However, I don't recall ever reading that salt could be included in the dough during the autolyse rest period. If I had to guess, it was because salt inhibits certain enzymes that soften the dough during autolysis and can result in an undesirable strengthening of the gluten matrix. However, that said, it is also important to note that essentially any dough that is allowed to rest can have an improved texture. Norma had been demonstrating this recently with her high-hydration Detroit style doughs, where after mixing everything together, including the flour, salt and yeast, a rest period improves the texture and handling qualities of the dough (see, for example, Reply 1349 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,21559.msg236901.html#msg236901).

It is up to you as to whether to include the yeast and salt in the dough during the rest period. Whether you are a purist about autolyse or not, you are likely to get some benefits from the rest period, just as Norma demonstrated. However, should you decide to add the yeast and salt later, then I would tend to agree with you that holding back part of the formula water to prehydrate the yeast is perhaps a good way of distributing the yeast more uniformly into the dough. Otherwise, you may find that the fermentation process is slowed by adding the yeast in dry form, as I have discovered in tests that I have conducted. As for the salt, it is common in certain dough applications (some of which really irritated Prof. Calvel) to add it late in the process and, as such, it appears to be readily distributed into the dough without first dissolving it in water.

All of the above is directed to autolysis. As Craig noted, complying with the above suggestions might not solve all of your problems. But they shouldn't harm your dough in any way. It may become more a matter of whether you like the results of using autolysis. Not everyone uses autolysis and not everyone likes it.

Other than time constraints, is there any reason NOT to autolyse? It seems like a win-win situation if you have the time.

adletson,

On paper, you would think that that should be so. However, as I noted in my last post (last sentence), not everyone uses autolysis and not everyone likes to use that method. I personally am not a big fan of autolysis but I did like it better when using sourdough cultures as opposed to commercial yeast. I thought that the crumb of the crusts was too bread-like when using autolysis. When a member asked me what I meant by 'bread-like", the reply I gave him is embodied in Reply 5 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,7225.msg62715/topicseen.html#msg62715.

I should add that we have had many members who used autolysis for just about all of their doughs, and with results that pleased them immensely. So, my best advice is for people to try autolysis and determine for themselves whether it is something they want to use in their pizza making.

From my dough making experiences and from what I have read, this rest period allows the flour granules to hydrate and thereby provides an aqueous medium for the formation of gluten molecules. The hydration level of the dough and water temperature probably plays a larger role in determining how long the dough needs to rest before kneading. The colder the water and the less water in your dough, the longer itís going to take before all the flour in your dough is completely saturable and ready to be kneaded. How long will it take for the flour to be ready to mixed given a certain hydration level and water temperature.... I have no clue? I have never seen it modeled so I couldnít say. Based on my own experiences and what is reported by others, anywhere between 5-20 minutes, you just need to go with your gut to some extent when you want to proceed further.

I do not see any issue when yeast are added to the dough, either during or after your initial mixing is fine. It is going to take a while for the yeast to become fully active and multiply to any significant level in the dough anyway. Therefore whether you add it in during or after the first mix is trivium in my opinion.

The salt on the other hand I prefer to add after the first mixing and rest period. I wonít bore you with the biochem behind my rational for adding salt after the rest period, however salt is an osmotic molecule, meaning that it can push water away from cells and starches, ie preventing some of the flour granules from becoming hydrated, and can interact with other molecules in the dough as well. From what I have read, the sodium cations (Na+) in salt aid in strengthen the amino acid structure forming the gluten bonds in the dough, which is why the dough becomes more ridged when salt is added. This extra stiffness, in my experience, makes the dough a little more difficult to fully mix by hand the first time around, especially when working with lower hydration doughs, but that may just be me. In short, I add everything but the salt during the first mix and the salt after the dough has rested for a given period of time.

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Love this stuff !! and learning from the real masters think I am doing it wrong then but no plans to change .I add salt to water disolve add 75% flour mix and rest or autolyse for MIN 20 Minutes. Then add last 25% of flour and yeast mix for 6-8 min rest 2 min mix 1-2 more all feel at that point. Comes out OK I think so far? Dont want to blow a 75 dough ball party but may try a few varieties of the process in the bosch before spring and see if there is a noticable difference Pretty sure Roberto adds the yeast to the water first dissolves it, then adds flour. no rest then salt and flour 10-12 min fork mix ?> Larryis this close ??thanks for the refresher !